Dale Earnhardt Jr. shares "heart-pounding" backstory about validating Dale Sr.’s $180,000 prized possession's authenticity

Dale Earnhardt Jr. went down memory lane and recalled when he took Rick Hendrick, the owner of Hendrick Motorsports' help to buy Dale Sr.'s $180,000 treasure trove. During the Dirty Mo Media podcast. Junior shared the backstory with McLaren CEO Zak Brown, about how he verified whether it was the actual car.

Dale Sr. drove the car in the Busch Grand National Series in the 1980s. However, it was originally a Pontiac Ventura and was later converted into a Nova car after cutting off its nose. Junior bought the vehicle in 2019 through Rick Hendrick.

According to the two-time Xfinity Series champion, Zak Brown possessed the car during the time and sold it to Hendrick. But what concerned Dale Earnhardt Jr. was whether it was the actual Nova that his father drove.

Junior consulted his uncle Robert Gee and Tony Eury Sr., who built and worked on Dale Sr.'s car several times, about it being the original 1980 Nova. Both nodded.

However, when Rick Hendrick purchased the car and brought it to Junior, the latter was "nervous" as he still wasn't sure about the originality. That said, Dale Jr. unfolded the "heart-pounding" moment when he went to the garage to validate the car's authenticity.

"There's a picture of me taken when I was 12 years old sitting in the car, in the garage, at a racetrack and the photographer took the photo from the passenger side and I'm just in the car, pretending to drive it as a little kid," Junior said (1:18).

"It dawned on me, that the radio box was mounted in that car on the A-post and riveted to a sheet of steel that went from the top door bar to the top of the sheet metal door on the car. I'm thinking to myself, 'Holy s**t if this is the car, those holes should still be there.' So, I ran down to my shop and my heart was pounding, and I peeked in there and the sheet metal was original and the two holes are on that A-post...and I'm like, 'It's the car.'" he added.

The car was backed by a 358ci NASCAR V8 engine producing over 700hp with a 4-speed manual transmission.

"All that was automatic and fell into place": Dale Earnhardt Jr. on how the 1980 Nova was restored without any fuss

Apart from finding the holes in the A-post, Dale Earnhardt Jr. retraced other modifications made to the car to confirm its authenticity. This included the hammer marks on the floorboard, evidence of the tactic used by Dale Sr. to reduce the driving seat's height, and multiple photos from 1986 that collated with the purchased car's visuals.

After the confirmation, restoration began on the memorable 1980 Nova as the 49-year-old planned on running demonstration laps at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. During the job, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was "surprised" by how easy it was to set the car up, despite being decades old.

During the 'ASKJR' segment of Dale Jr Download, the legendary NASCAR driver detailed how quickly the car was ready to drive.

"It was really surprising to me actually how quickly it was set up. The rear end doesn't have any adjustments in the trailing arms. They bolt right in. There's no shimming them one way or the other, which is what a lot of cars have today. They just bolt right in so it's either too far to the left or too far to the right. You just adjust the track to get it straight," Earnhardt Jr said (2:05).

After the restoration, Dale Earnhardt Jr. took the #8 car for a spin in what appeared to be the North Carolina hills.